It is, of course, a matter for wonder that any life can exist in the desert at all. The absence of water and vegetation, and the scarcity of even insects, seem to make it impossible for any living thing that subsists by eating and drinking to survive. The arid, barren wastes of sand and stone and mud could not support a mouse, much less a larger animal. There is not even a shred ot moss or lichen anywhere and at first, when one sees the small isolated plants and thorny shrubs, the wee coloured flowers, and the occasional little sprouts of spear grass known to the Bedouin as “Ithmum” and “Dahram,” one seeks in vain for an explanation of their growth. That explanation is not easily found. There is heavy dew at night, and no doubt they make the most of the very rare bursts of rain, which, when they come make waterfalls of every ridge and roll the boulders noisily down the narrow gully beds. But the water sinks into the dry soil as into a thirsty sponge; none of it remains on the surface. The denudation in these torrential downfalls of the winter months is very great, but the benefit to the scanty plant-life must be small enough. Yet along the bottom of every valley may be seen, not infrequently, the little thorny shrubs the camels eat; and perhaps, like their devourers, they have a special means of storing moisture for future use. But, when it comes to animal-life, the wonder is far greater. Presumably the gazelles, the foxes, the jackals, hares, hyenas and the little jerbils, whose footsteps in the sand (sometimes, too, whose skeletons) one finds, know, even better than the Bedouins, the exact spots where the pools of water hide at such great distances apart. At any rate, the travellers’ notes of the animal and bird life they have encountered in these parched and desolate solitudes are full of interest and⁠—surprise. At a stone’s throw from Helouan one thinks, of course, life stops short. Instead, it is just beginning. The silent desert is full of life. The ants, to start with, are fairly plentiful. Not in communities, be it understood, for an ant-heap is never seen; but solitary and very busy individuals, with recurved abdomens, hurrying along as though living were the simplest matter in the world. The very minute Egyptian ant, too, is common everywhere. Scorpions beneath turned stones are frequent enough, and lizards dart about in the fierce sunshine as happily as if the plenty of Italy and France lay easily within their reach. Perhaps they never drink! They are plentiful enough, and increase as you go towards Suez and the Red Sea. Geckos and agamas, the latter a peculiar flat-bodied, large-headed, uncouth little creature, are among the ones most frequently seen; but the most striking are the spiny-tailed varieties, which love the soft leaves of the “seyal” plant whenever they can find it. There is another kind that the weaker-minded among the Arabs dread, because they say it throws stones at them with its tail. Its energetic, quick movements apparently flick the smaller stones to a considerable distance. There are snakes, too, though rarely seen, and to be found mostly in the hills further east towards the Red Sea. The horned viper (kakar) is greatly dreaded by the Arabs; but no one merely walking in the desert hereabouts appears to have seen one. A doctor, however, interested in the desert life tells me he caught a specimen with a bird in its mouth it had just killed, and another having the remains of a wagtail in its stomach. The jackals come, of course, as their habit is, very close to human habitations, and may often be heard crying after nightfall or in the early morning on the outskirts of Helouan. The hyrax is another desert animal, too shy to be often seen. It has a variable distribution, being dependent to a large extent upon the amount of rainfall, so that a colony may completely disappear from a district after a dry season. It has a sharply-pointed muzzle and small rounded ears, and the body is covered with a thick coat of nearly uniformly-coloured hair, deep brown as a rule. It lives in rocky or stony places, in communities, like rabbits, haunting holes beneath the rocks and is found, too, frequently in certain districts in the rocky watercourses. Its feet are of remarkable structure, being very flat and pad-like, so that it can run with ease on the smooth rocky slopes. The toes are leathery in appearance, there being four on the front and three on the hind feet. The presence of two pairs of well-marked front teeth, one in the upper and the other in the lower jaw, also gives a characteristic appearance which enables the skull of a hyrax to be readily recognised. Mr. Hume of the Cairo Survey Department mentions these particulars.